Aspirin may help you survive a heart attack, but to ease a broken heart, tryTylenol. In a new study published in Psychological Science, peoplewhotook 1,000mg of acetaminophen dailyfor three weeks telt gradual relieffrom the sting of social rejection.

The reason:

Acetaminophen raisesyour brain’s pain threshold for both emotional and physical injury.

Ways to make your diet Omega-3 fatty acids rich

• Make a tuna, light mayonnaise and salad sandwich for lunch
• Add some tinned fish to a salad—like a salad with tuna and green beans, tomato, olives and low-fat canola mayonnaise

• Add smoked salmon capers or tuna, to pasta dishes

• Include eggs in your diet. You can have poached eggs on toast for breakfast

• When you need to use oil in cooking, use canola oil

• Use multigrain or soy and linseed bread

• Offer a dark green Ieafy vegetable dish as a side— sautéed spinach or steamed Asian greens

• Reduce the saturated bad’ fat in the menu by trimming excess fat from meat

• Remove skin from chicken and choose low fat dairy products

When the waiter asks, “Coffee or tea?” reply, “Tea”. Harvard medical-school researchers found that drinking one or more cups of black tea daily was associated with a 45 per cent decrease in heart attacks. The flavonoids in the tea may reduce the build-up of fatty deposits in the arteries. says Howard Sesso, SD. the lead researcher And it doesn’t have to be Earl Grey; plain Lipton or Tetley will do the artery- clearing trick just as well.

Consuming large amounts of raw garlic may be good for your heart, but not necessarily your social life. So how best to enjoy these pungent little bulbs, witho&Jt losing their health benefits?

Crush them. Then bake them slightly. That’s according to USDA Agricultural Research Service (ARS) scientists and their colleagues in Argentina.
Researchers have known for some time that garlic — like its cousin, the onion — is a rich source of thiosulfinates. These sulfur compounds, best known for causing eyes to water, may lower blood pressure and break up potentially harmful clusters of platelets in the bloodstream. To maximize the thiosulfinates from garlic, experts thought you had to eat it raw.

After boiling, baking and microwaving both crushed and uncrushed cloves of garlic and evaluating their antiplatelet activity, the scientists learned that lightly cooked, crushed garlic provides most of the health benefits of raw garlic. The only exception was microwaving. which stnpped garlic almost entirely of its blood-thinning effects.

LOSING STATURE Men who lose three centimeters of height or more as they age are at an increased risk of mortality from any cause as well as coronary heart disease (CHD).

British researchers examined 4,213 men in 1998-2000 and compared their heights with previous measurements 20 years before. About 14 per cent of the older men (aged 60 to 79) had lost three centimeters (1.2 inches) or more during the two decades. Even after taking common risk factors for heart disease into account, researchers in a report in the Archives of Internal Medicine found that these men faced significantly larger risks for CHD but not for stroke.

The reasons for what appears to be higher risk for men who lose height are unclear. It’s possible that bone loss — a factor in height loss — is the indirect result of heart threats like high LDL (bad”) cholesterol and inflammation. But curiously, the researchers found no association between smoking and height loss even though a cigarette habit contributes to bone loss.

BEWARE Roller coasters are not for the faint of heart. It turns out that they may not be good for the infirm of heart, either.
Researchers at the University Hospital in Manrtheim, Germany, monitored the heart rates of 55 young people (average age. 28) before, during, and after they rode Expedition G-Force, a roller coaster in Hassloch, Germany.

Before they got on, the average heart rate of the study’s participants was 91 beats per minute, a bit above the healthy resting rate off 60-80 beats per minute, and nerhaps an indication that They were nervous but nothing exceptional.

This was a relatively tame roller coaster ride with a maximum speed of about 75 miles an hour; some rides these days go over 120 miles per hour. Still, halfway through the two-minute ride, the study participants’ hearts were pounding at a rate of 153 beats per minute on average. To the researchers’ surprise, the biggest increase came during the early, ascending part of the ride, not the steep descents that pack the G-forces and create the frightening sensation of falling.

The ride also had a lingering effect: About half of the riders had irregular heartbeats for several minutes after they got off, even after their heart rates returned to normal.

YOU NEED TO HIT A CERTAIN HEART RATE GAIN BENEFITS

Virtually any exercise that gets the heart beating faster and the lungs working harder will do you some good, even if your heart rate never increases dramatically.A more important consideration is how much exercise you do. For moderate exercise, like brisk walking, benefits begin to accrue with at least 100 minutes per week, and additional gains can be expected up to 300 minutes. The more vigorously you exercise, the shorter the time needed to reap the benefits.

New Delhi: Asia’s first biodegradable stent has been successfully implanted in a 65-year-old man for treating his artery blockage, doctors said here on Friday. Mr M.P. Singh, a native of Bihar, was the first patient to undergo the surgery on Tuesday.

The surgery at the Escorts Heart Institute was a part of the trials going on for the new Bioresorable Vasculas Scaffolds, a stent made of biodegradable polymer. “Unlike the normal metallic stents which remain in the artery forever, these stents dissolve completely in two years time, leaving the artery as good as untouched,” Fortis Escorts heart hospital Cardiovescular Sciences chairman, Dr Ashok Seth said.

The operation places a stent, a spring like structure in the artery, mounted on a balloon. The balloon, which breaks the blockage, is placed as a support so that the artery does not block again. So far, mettalic stents were being used for the surgery. “This technique relieves the patient from the adverse effects of metallic stents which compelled patients to take blood thinning medicines. With these stents, risk can be reduced as they dissolve in two years time,” Dr Seth said.

The surgery is done through minimal invasive methods like leproscopy or robotic surgery. The patients are back to their feet in 24 hours. Manufactured by US-based medical device company Abbott, the stent is expected to be a major breakthrough in the treatment of coronary artery diseases, which result from blockage of arteries.

The operation has been done under the Absorb Extend trial, the second phase of worldwide trials of the new technique. The first round saw trials on a total of 120 patients in New Zealand, Australia and Europe. “We are presently carrying out trials in 100 centres over 40 countries. These trials would involve 1,000 patients,” Abbot’s regional director and general manager of Southeast Asia, Mr Amit Kumar, said.

“So far, a total of 200 people have been treated using this technique,” he said. According to Mr Kumar, a total of 100 patients will be taken for the trials in India across six centers in Delhi, Hyderabad, Ahmedabad, Chennai and Lucknow. “The Drug Controller General of India has been very supportive and we got approval for the trial approximately in six months of applying,” he said.

“The trials will get completed in a year and a half, after that a complete report will be compiled. We are expecting to launch it commercially by 2013 and India will be among the first countries where it will be launched,” he added.

Men who work beyond 45 hours a week double their risk of dying from heart failure. However, men who keep fit or exercise and work long hours face no increased risk of dying from cardiac conditions.

The study examined data for 5,000 men — aged between 40 and 59 years from 14 different companies — which included their fitness levels over 30 years, reports the Daily Mail. The men did cycling exercise tests to assess their fitness and provided details on the average number of hours they worked every week, according to the journal Heart.

Around 70 per cent of men worked between 41 and 45 hours a week, while around 20 per cent worked longer hours. Over the course of the study, there were 587 deaths from heart disease caused by the narrowing and hardening of arteries.

Experts found that men who were unfit were at the greatest risk of dying from heart disease, particularly if they worked long hours. Those who were both unfit and worked more than 45 hours a week were more than twice as likely to die from the disease than men working fewer than 40 hours.

And men who worked 41 to 45 hours a week had a 59 percent higher risk of dying from heart disease compared to those working under 40 hours. Physically fit men working longer hours were 45 percent less likely to die of heart disease and 38 per cent less likely to die of other causes than those who were unfit.

The findings, by a team from the National Research Centre for the Working Environment in Denmark, held true despite factors likely to influence the results, such as work stress and living conditions

A new study by the US National Institute on ageing has warned that ambitious and aggressive people are at a risk of heart attacks and strokes as compared to agreeable and more trusting people. The research was carried out in four villages of Italy and subjects were closely observed for a period of three years. The study directly relates tension and stiffness in neck arteries to stress caused by anger and aggression. The conclusion was reached with a help of personality test taken by respondents which measures antagonism.